After ten arduous years of restoration, the Southern Cross-Island Highway finally reopens to Tianchi! A surge of vehicles overwhelms the mountain roads, and locals appeal: cherish the scars on the land and revere nature
The Southern Cross-Island Highway (Provincial Highway No. 20) starts from Yujing in Tainan, passes through Jiaxian, Liugui Baolai and Taoyuan in Kaohsiung, crosses Yushan National Park, and reaches Guanshan in Taitung. Its magnificent scenery has made it a popular tourist route. It was severely damaged by Typhoon Morakot in 2009, leading to a closure and restoration that lasted more than ten years, which also dealt a heavy blow to the livelihoods of the tribes along the route.
The Directorate General of Highways announced the opening of the highlight section from Meishankou to Tianchi on January 13, attracting a large number of Southern Cross-Island Highway fans to revisit old haunts. Traffic that had not been seen for a long time surged, and businesses along the route were all thrilled and hopeful. Local conservationists reminded: "On the Southern Cross-Island Highway you can see the real scars of the land. When economic development is pursued excessively, it is the forests and the tribal residents who bear the consequences. The landslides you see on the Southern Cross-Island Highway were not caused by road building or logging, but by the backlash of extreme climate. This is something people traveling on the highway must reflect on."
Southern Cross-Island General Store: Ten years have passed, please let us serve everyone once again!
When Yang Dengming, owner of the Meilan General Store, introduces himself, he makes a point of noting that his family are descendants of Hakka from Miaoli who came south a hundred years ago to harvest and process camphor. After the camphor industry declined in the 1930s, many migrants went to Taitung to open up land or returned north. Yang Dengming's grandfather stayed on the Southern Cross-Island Highway to run a general store, and unexpectedly made more money than doing labor. By the time it reached Yang Dengming's father, a small hotel and a gas station were successively added to serve passing travelers.
"Please note, the next gas station is in Chishang, 110 km away." The prominent sign reminds travelers that this is the last gas station in the Southern Cross-Island Highway mountain area. The Yang family, who had not seen traffic surge on the Southern Cross-Island Highway for a long time, seemed especially happy.
During the typhoon disaster, Yang Dengming and his wife Peng Yijun insisted on staying to guard the family business, and only left by helicopter after a mandatory evacuation order was issued. A month later, reconstruction work began, and the contractor asked Yang Dengming and his wife to come back to operate the business and provide fuel for construction vehicles. A century-old family business they had once thought they were about to give up was extended once again because of the reconstruction project.
For as long as ten years after the disaster, reconstruction work replaced tourists as the main customers of the Southern Cross-Island General Store. From daily sundries, cigarettes and betel nut to engineering equipment and consumables, it had everything, practically a mini department store. The Yang family's two children also came back from the city to help, and now the third generation has been born, with the whole family guarding this little general store together. Peng Yijun said expenses in the mountains are low, and the key is "earning peace for the family; family reunion is happiness."
After the opening on January 13, traffic on the once quiet highway surged, and business at the gas station and general store for supplies increased markedly at once, but there were also sideswipe accidents caused by excessive speed, with ambulances speeding past every day. Even so, Peng Yijun still said: "After waiting ten years, it is finally open, and it feels like we are about to welcome a new life and new hope! I am happier than at Chinese New Year." Even though life has become a bit noisier, her face was full of irrepressible delight and smiles.
Liugui Baolai business district: The opening of the Southern Cross-Island Highway is like rain after a long drought, but how long can the benefits of the crowds last?
Baolai is a famous hot spring resort in Kaohsiung. Locals describe it this way: if the Southern Cross-Island Highway is a major artery, delivering crowds and driving economic development, then Baolai is the heart of the Southern Cross-Island Highway, with dozens of hot spring hotels of various sizes serving as relay stations for passing travelers to stay and rest.
Zhong Xianggui, former chairman of the business district association, pays attention to the number of vehicles on the Southern Cross-Island Highway every day, and can show the data at hand: "On the first day it started at 663, then 507, 684, 609, 564 in order, Saturday 997 came close to breaking the thousand mark, and Sunday suddenly soared to 1,322 vehicles."
There is a reason Zhong Xianggui's heart leaps along with the numbers. He recalls the prosperity before the typhoon disaster: "On Baolai Street there were people around the clock, business was incredibly good, taking money and making change, the drawer almost never had time to close." After the typhoon disaster, Baolai was severely hit by floods, and the whole street fell into the bottom and was barely breathing.
Recalling that bleak time, Zhong Xianggui described it as "too deep a blow to Baolai, losing direction, no industry, no future in sight." He once went to Qishan, which was less severely damaged, rented a storefront on the old street, and sold Southern Cross-Island Highway products, but rents kept rising, so he had no choice but to retreat to Baolai.
After the opening of the Southern Cross-Island Highway, Zhong Xianggui estimated that business performance had generally increased by about 30 percent, but he also worried that the crowd effect could not last, and hoped the government would help speed up the project so that the tourist crowds on the Southern Cross-Island Highway could return soon.
Wang Pengzi, a former tourism section chief who served Liugui for a long time, believes that the opening of the Southern Cross-Island Highway has attracted many people to revisit old haunts, but he estimates that the crowds will decline after the Chinese New Year holiday. Since the currently open section to Tianchi still requires turning back, locals still need to think about how to develop in-depth pocket tourism models, so that after the boom cools, communities and tribes can still attract travelers to visit again and again.
Meishan tribe youth: Taking advantage of the opening traffic to set up a "small tribal market"
In November, the Directorate General of Highways discussed the highway opening with the Meishan tribe. Tribe youth Lu Shihao and his cousin Du Yucheng were quick-witted and calculated how to use the opportunity to make a little money. The open space below the Yushan National Park Headquarters stone marker belongs to the Du family. The family leveled the land and turned it into a small tribal market selling cabbage, agricultural products and snacks.
Since the opening, Lu Shihao has harvested sixty heads of cabbage every day and sold them all. He believes this wave of enthusiasm is only short-term and that crowds will drop sharply after the New Year, so he can only take advantage of this wave of popularity to clear out all the short-season winter vegetables. He revealed that most tribal people in Taoyuan have diversified employment: on one hand they take care of family fields, growing plums, plums and peaches and other high-mountain fruit trees; on the other hand they also look for various work opportunities in the mountains, such as working for engineering units or serving as security guards.
Lu Shihao said that before the typhoon disaster, Taoyuan tribes could sell directly at roadside stalls, but after the typhoon disaster they could only transport goods to Fuxing Village for joint marketing and shipment, or hand them over to the Liugui Farmers' Association, which naturally cut into profits. "If we could sell directly to tourists beside the highway, saving freight, cardboard boxes and handling fees, the increase in income would be very noticeable." He believes the opening of the highway has clearly raised tribal income.
Jiaxian locals: "This road was too hard to travel, and it is all the more worth cherishing"
Zeng Jiajing, who promotes cultural creativity and local tourism in Jiaxian, believes the Southern Cross-Island Highway is like a portrait of post-disaster reconstruction. After reopening, it should not merely drive tourist crowds higher. The Southern Cross-Island Highway carries much land trauma from nature's backlash, and a total traffic control system should be set up accordingly so that visitors cherish this mountain forest.
"This road waited ten years, and these ten years were too hard to travel. How many people risked their lives, sacrificed and gave their all to open this road?" Zeng Jiajing believes people should view the reopening of the Southern Cross-Island Highway with humility and gratitude.
Community worker Zeng Liyun said: "I hope this highway can let travelers see the price paid over these ten years and cherish the use of environmental resources. Otherwise nature can take it all back at any time." She believes the Southern Cross-Island Highway is an environmental classroom given by nature, letting visitors better understand the importance of environmental sustainability.
Chen Zhicheng, secretary-general of the Jiaxian Image Business District, said: "After the reopening, seeing the growth in crowds is like seeing hope for tourism revival, but maintaining this highway with reinforced concrete alone is not enough." He also agreed that total traffic control and high-occupancy measures should be adopted to avoid excessive environmental load, so that the Southern Cross-Island Highway can remain open for a long, long time.
Public works unit: The geology along the Southern Cross-Island Highway is fragile, and the restoration project went through great hardship and danger
Chen Zhengwei, head of the Jiaxian Public Works Section, pointed out that the Southern Cross-Island Highway restoration project faced enormous difficulties. The landslide area above the Meishan Ming Tunnel was as large as 13 football fields, and in 2016 it experienced a major collapse that crushed the newly completed new tunnel. Heavy rain during the flood season also caused the work area to be closed and work stopped many times. The difficulty was so great that a contractor even preferred to terminate the contract and run away.
Facing outside doubts about the necessity of restoring the Southern Cross-Island Highway, Chen Zhengwei explained that the highway has tourism economic benefits and is also an important road linking Bunun tribes and connecting the east and west. At present, the Southern Cross-Island Highway has been downgraded from provincial highway status to a temporary access road (with road signs marked as "105 Temporary Access Road"), reducing its scale to lessen engineering disturbance to the environment.
It is said that before the opening of the Southern Cross-Island Highway, local figures were invited to a meeting. At that time some advocated total traffic control to avoid excessive pressure on the fragile ecological environment of the Southern Cross-Island Highway, but another view held that a trial opening would initially attract many people coming from afar, and that for public convenience there should not be too many restrictions. In the end, the highway unit decided on a plan with no restrictions.
In response, Chen Zhengwei said that although no total traffic control is imposed, the highway unit controls traffic volume by controlling opening hours. As for the issue of mountain forest conservation, the highway unit cannot restrain people entering the mountains from engaging in mountain forest activities. At present, the Yushan National Park Headquarters has assigned additional patrol officers and police to help maintain the Southern Cross-Island Highway mountain forest environment.
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